


Parole 3: Swanscombe

by GloriaMundi



Series: Parole [4]
Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: C17, Gen, Historical, POV First Person, Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-28
Updated: 2006-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 20:50:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I wonder if Jack can feel the tide even now, so far from shore. I wonder if he craves the sea as I once did."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parole 3: Swanscombe

I breakfast alone most mornings. It suits me very well to have first read of the newspaper, before Jack can smear butter and marmalade over the inky pages, or James begin to scowl at the naval reports. Though it seems very likely, now, that the wars are over at last.

Meg comes in with a second pot of coffee and a plate of toast as I'm reading about the French king's triumphal return to Paris.

"Is the news good, Miss?" she asks me, laying Jack's place at the head of the table.

"It is," I tell her, smiling. "Bonaparte has surrendered, they say. Perhaps your John will be back soon!"

"Maybe in time for harvest," says Meg wistfully. I pretend not to notice the pitying way she looks at me. She's stopped telling me whether James' bed has been slept in. Why should I care? I'm not the one whose company he seeks at night.

It's July already, and uncomfortably warm indoors despite the breeze that rustles the treetops outside the window. Oh, I ache with missing the sea, the cool salt air, the ...

"Good morning, Elizabeth!" Jack twitches the newspaper out of my hands and scans it as he sits. James will be here in three minutes, give or take a handful of seconds. I don't bother to watch the clock.

Instead I gaze out of the window at the billowing green sea of leaves in the valley, sipping my cooling coffee: set my empty cup ready for Jack to pour me another. This is the life Will always wanted: a fine house, enough money that we've no need to think of it, good company. I feel a traitor, living it without him. But Will's long gone, too honourable and decent to save himself and serve under Barbossa. (The thought of my own service has worn smooth in my mind, like a beach-pebble, but still I set it aside as quickly as I can.) I, now: I'm alive, and I can do whatever I choose.

There's a haunted look in Jack's eyes, but his hands are cleaner than I've ever seen them. The cuffs of his white shirt are clean, too, and unfrayed. My own hands are soft and scarless again, unmarked by age or labour. And here comes James with his white smile, skin tanned from the sun - we spend a deal of time out of doors - but clear-eyed and at peace as I've seldom seen him. He spares hardly a glance for Jack as he gives me good morning, but there's an enviable easiness, a certain grace, in the way that Jack leans towards him as he pours coffee.

Whatever accord these two have, I haven't been invited to partake of it.

"Anything worth reading today?" enquires James, buttering toast.

"Louis back in Paris," says Jack. "Napoleon surrendered. War bonds changing hands as if there's no tomorrow."

"What?" I say sharply. "I didn't see that."

"Common sense, is it not?" says Jack, with an ungenerous smile. "I'd've thought an individual as ... fiscally astute as yourself would've noticed that."

I take a deep breath. It smells of summer. I won't let Jack bait me: I won't give James munition for his eye-rolling.

"I had wondered," I say coolly. "And of course I'll read the reports, later - once you've finished with the newspaper, Jack. But there's no hurry, surely, to sell?"

Jack shrugs. "Just thought you might prefer to have some gold to hand," he says, helping himself to mushrooms, "while I'm away."

"Away?" I say, and my voice clashes horribly with James'. "What about ... what about us?"

"I'll be leaving the two of you to cure each other of what ails you," says Jack, bestowing a self-satisfied smirk upon James and then me.

"Really?" drawls James. "And what would you say ails me, _Captain_ Sparrow?"

"Too much of a good thing, mate," says Jack, with a wink.

"Why, you -"

"James!" I snap. He's wrong-footed enough by Jack's revelation to let me interrupt him. "Jack, don't you think you'd better tell us where you're going?"

Jack doesn't answer me. He stares out of the window, over the river, south towards the distant invisible sea. Even in the wildest storms, the spray on the windows is saltless, and the river that runs through the valley knows nothing of tides. Nor do I, any more: it's safer this way, and I don't wish to give up this second lease of life. The longer I stay away from the sea, the more human I feel. It's the same for James, though he's had half a century longer to leach the salt from his blood. But Jack ... I wonder if Jack can feel the tide even now, so far from shore. I wonder if he craves the sea as I once did.

"Better," says Jack abruptly at last: "I'll show you." Standing, he drains his coffee-cup and strides out of the breakfast room as though there's suddenly some urgency to our lives.

James pushes his fingers through his short dark hair: his knuckles are white. An easy target, for a change; I can't resist goading him.

"Surely it's not the first time Jack's  betrayed you?" I enquire, solicitously.

"If he had," says James icily, "it would be [*fair payment]. We've both sentenced him to death, haven't we?"

"He's always escaped," I counter. "Haven't you heard the stories?"

"He's never betrayed _me_," insists James, "though the converse isn't true. Another thing you and I have in common, Elizabeth."

"Besides what?"

"Besides loving him."

"I -"

But I can't, or I won't, lie to James. Not the way I lied to Will about Jack. Not the way I lied to myself. I can feel the blood pinking my cheeks. I take a mouthful of cold coffee, thankful for the bitterness.

"He's always escaped," I say, quietly enough that James must lean towards me to hear. "He's escaping again."

"Life on land doesn't suit Jack Sparrow," says James, with a rueful smile. "You and I need it to stay human. But Jack? That's another story."

"Once I thought he wanted me," I say numbly. James nods, as though we've spoken of this before. As though - and this I _am_ sure of - he understands me. "I thought," I rush on, "that I'd have to choose. Between ... between the three of you."

"It's only you and I now, Elizabeth." James fixes me with his level gaze.

"Has he ... has he gone away, left you, before?" I murmur.

"Many times," says James, and he looks past me, out of the window, towards that horizon. "This is the longest he's ... But he always comes back."

"Is it -"

But my question will have to wait: Jack, like a force of nature, fills the room with his presence as soon as he returns. He's carrying an armful of charts and rolled maps; they smell of new paper and ink. I see him notice James' hand covering mine on the crumb-dappled cloth, but he says nothing: just begs James' assistance as he unfurls a chart and weights the corners with breakfast paraphernalia.

"There are new lands to the south, here," he tells us. "I've a mind to see them."

His old compass rests atop a pile of monologues: Cook, Dampier, Magellan. My sense of direction's all mazed since I came to Swanscombe - Jack insists the name's coincidence - but I know without looking where the needle will point. To the sea; to the horizon; to the south.

"Far to the south - as far south as Cook ever sailed, they say, though personally I reckon there's half a dozen good Navy men went further than him in his little collier - there's a latitude where all the world is ocean "

If I held the compass, it would point to him. He pulls at me as the tide once did. But there's no safety at sea.

"If I asked you to stay, would you?" I interrupt.

Jack's more himself - his old self - than he's been for weeks. He leers at me, and says, "What coin were you thinking, for payment?"

I swear that's a growl from James. I know Jack better than once I did. I know it's the sea calling him, like an itch, like an ache, like a lover. I think I know the coin that'd keep him: I think that if I truly needed him, he'd stay.

"Will you come back?" I say instead.

"I will, love," he replies: and though it's me who asked the question, he's looking at James.

"Then you should go," says James, as though it doesn't matter. As though we're like Jack.

"Perhaps you'll have heard," says Jack, pushing away the weights that hold the corners of the map and flicking that sardonic black gaze at us both, "that the world's round."

"Oh, really?"

 "Go on, Captain Sparrow," I say evenly, more attuned to Jack's little games than James'll ever be.

"Why, Lizzie, it's a simple enough thing," says Jack, with a triumphant look. "I've a horizon calling me: terrible thing, that, as you may recall. But the world's round, is it not? And so, no matter how far and fast I sail in pursuit of that horizon, I'll end where I began. With you." He's looking at me: James is staring at him. "With you ... both," says Jack, and leans back as though the deal's been struck.

\- end -


End file.
